Government & Business Correspondence:
Planning Business Reports and Proposals — Thill/Bovee 10



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This quiz is based on Business Communication (activebook 2.0) by John V. Thill and Courtland L. Bovee.

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  1. All of the following are types of informational reports except:
    monitoring and controlling operations
    implementing policies and procedures
    supporting a recommendation
    complying with government regulations
  2. All of the following are true of a well-written summary except:
    The content is accurate.
    It supports a recommendation.
    It is comprehensive and balanced.
    The report structure is clear.
  3. Examples of analytical reports include reports for:
    solving problems
    justifying a project or course of action
    obtaining new business or funding
    all the above
  4. Which of the following statements is false?
    Troubleshooting reports are one type of problem-solving report.
    Justification reports are used to persuade top management to approve a product or course of action.
    A proposal is a special type of analytical report used to get products, plans, or projects accepted by outside business or government clients.
    Proposals are not legally binding.
  5. The first step in planning a report is to:
    outline the issues for investigation
    prepare a work plan
    define the problem
    limit the scope of the study
  6. To limit the scope of a study, do not ask about:
    what needs to be determined
    who is involved in the situation
    how the situation originated
    what medium and channel should be used
  7. A formal work plan usually includes the following elements except:
    primary and secondary sources
    statement of the problem
    discussion of tasks to be accomplished
    review of project assignments, schedules, and resource requirements
  8. Which of the following sources are found in libraries?
    librarians
    business books
    electronic database
    all the above
  9. All of the following should be used in database searches except:
    Boolean operators
    proximity operators
    stop words
    wildcards
  10. Which of the following is not a primary source of information?
    reading books and articles
    making observations
    surveying people
    conducting interviews
  11. Survey questions that yield reliable, valid results use all of the following criteria except:
    short and easy-to-answer format
    questions that are easy to tabulate
    leading questions
    questions that ask only one thing at a time
  12. To evaluate the credibility of sources, ask all of the following questions except:
    whether the source is potentially biased
    where the source got its information
    whether the source can be found by several different search engines
    whether the material is current
  13. The following are goals of paraphrasing except:
    keeping it shorter than the original
    not altering or distorting the meaning of the original text
    quoting the original source verbatim
    presenting the source in your own words
  14. Which of the following definitions is not true?
    The mean is the sum of all the items in the group divided by the number of items in the group.
    The median is the midpoint of the series of items.
    The median is the sum of all the items in the group divided by the number of items in the group
    The mode is the number that occurs more often than any other in your sample.
  15. A sound conclusion must do all of the following except:
    fulfill the original statement of purpose
    be based strictly on the information provided in the text of the report
    be logical
    be based on primary sources.


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